The Championship of Cycling's Subculture
by Chip Baker
Bicyclist, July 1997
Bike messengers are a different breed. To outsiders, they appear to be equal parts anarchist, Hell's Angel and Nazi storm trooper. They live hard, ride hard and sometimes die hard.
The only time you probably notice them in your daily life is when they are pressed up against you, dripping with sweat in a crowded elevator, or as a high-speed blur as one flashes by in front of your car. They are not people you think of as being "one of us," and you probably don't consider them athletes. Spend some time with them (which is fairly-impossible, due to the fact that they live in such a tight-knit group and accept outsiders with about as much affection as a wolf pack) and you'll see past the harsh exteriors and find bicycle fanatics who are more committed to the sport of cycling than you and I combined. Most of them choose messenger work not because they can't get a job doing something more socially acceptable, but because they can't find any other way of life that rewards them for riding their hearts out eight hours a day five days a week.
What’s even more amazing than the fact that messengers risk their lives every day is that even after an entire day in the saddle, they can rally the energy and enthusiasm to ride out of the city and into the surrounding headlands for more pedal-pushing pleasure ln a roundabout way, that is how the whole idea of a world championships for bike messengers was spawned. It grew from the alley cat underground races that have been as much a part of the bike messenger culture as messenger bags. It became their Woodstock an opportunity to gather the "global tribe", share ideas, admire each others' new tattoos and scars, exchange art and music party and test their mettle in some of the most demanding cycling cities in the world. This year's Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC) took place in San Francisco, California, and took advantage of both its hilly terrain and fervent bike culture. Participants came from as far as Europe the Far East and Canada.
While rolling along Fisherman's Wharf on a prerace tour of the racecourse talking with one of my courier buddies, I noticed a group of five riders looking suspiciously like neo-pro Euro road racers. Upon further investigation, it was decided that the entire Euro contingent was cheating" or at least that's how the couriers from New York, Boston and San Francisco saw it. It seems these cyclists had a real problem with the fact that the Euros didn't smoke, drank far too infrequently and, frankly, took their "training" much too seriously. What a surprise, I thought, Euros dominating a bike race. I guess that was my real problem with the Worlds as I saw it, the Americans, Canadians and Japanese came for the party, the exchange of art and ideas and to be around like-minded bikers, and the Euros were crashing the party. While the Americans didn't stand a real chance of victory, they did put up one heck of a fight and our women rode respectably.
Qualifying rounds narrowed the field of competitors to the 100 fastest couriers. A miss-and-out format was used, where points were accumulated by picking up packages of varying sizes. A PC computer, for example, counted for double what a flat envelope would. Riders had to pick up packages and deliver them to the next checkpoint to drop their "tags." There were numerous check points, throughout the course, making strategy an integral part of the success.
In the final, the 100 fastest messengers took off from the eastern waterfront at Embarcadero Plaza in a Le Mans start, where the riders dashed down the street to their bikes. The ensuing rush of bodies left a few riders crashed a mere 50 feet into the race, looking for spare wheels and bikes. The rules of the qualifier were supplanted for a simpler, fast-paced format in the final. Racers still had to pick up and deliver packages, but the slower riders were pulled from the field by officials based upon their place in the pack.
What really mattered was the actual competition. The course was laid out along the Embarcadero and snaked through town, featuring a downhill section that would make Mammoth Mountain's fabled Kamikaze downhill pale in comparison. A checkpoint was at the top, forcing riders to get off their bikes and run down e flight of stairs before remounting their bikes. They hit warp speed on the down hill in about five seconds, at which point many riders were seen riding no hands, strapping their bags back on. The messengers hit Broadway at about 40 to 50 mph and took the turns so hard their rear wheels chattered across the broken pavement. Oh yeah, and did I point out that about 95 percent of the racers were on drop bar road bikes with skinny tires?
While it was amazing that the descent didn't actually claim some serious body count, the climb definitely took its toll. San Francisco is known for its hills, and the race promoters ran contestants over some doozies. With packages under their arms or strapped to their backs, the riders humped up those hills like mountain goats. Grunting and grinding, that section hammered home to every spectator pre sent that these cyclists were the real deal.
This year’s messenger of all messengers was Sven Baumann, a Swiss rider for Cyclomessengers Unis Suisses. Many pints were tilted in his name and many more for all who came and saw and rode their hearts out, proving once again that it's not so much the winning that matters, but putting everything you have into the competition.
Chip Baker, an eight-year San Francisco resident, is the former editor of California Bicyclist.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com